Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, troglodytic cave dwellers with Internet and cable access...Rejoice! For we stand on the precipice of a great cultural event: Euro 2008! Hail to the soccer gods and the football deities. Pray to your pagan high spirits and your totemic artifacts. The time has come for a great international tournament with acts of athleticism so inspirational that reporters will run out of superlatives to describe the greatness before them. There will be WAGs as far as the eye can see. I tell you, it will be a little slice of heaven, spread out among multiple venues in Switzerland and Austria. Life makes sense again in just under four days.
No doubt, after reading that awe inspiring intro, that the reader of this lowly blog will be salivating at the prospect of a month long treasure trove meaningful soccer (sorry, I'm an American) in glorious HD. Better yet, the tourney is on ESPN so there will be no need to hand over the $100+ that it cost to buy Euro 2004 on pay per view. The Worldwide Leader just earned a free pass in my book for a couple of months or at least until Joe Morgan features in the press box for a meaningful game.
Worried that the tourney is about to start and you are left woefully in the dark about the teams and players. Worry not, loyal reader, for over the next four to five days, this blog will feature a quick and tidy preview of each group. Each glimpse will provide a little background on the squad, a player to watch video and a picture of a hot chick from said country. Seems about right to me.
Because I'm a stickler for rules, we start with Group A.
Czech Republic - I loved the Czech Republic in 2004. With Nedved, Poborsky, Milan Baros playing out of his mind and Praha's version of Peter Crouch, Jan Koller, scoring left and right, this team played attractive, flowing football with such verve that Arsene Wenger was envious. Subtract Nedved and Poborsky from midfield, scratch Rosicky (out injured) and the flair that captivated the heart of one North American recent college grad is no longer there.
But let's not discount the quality that still remains. Koller, a giant at 6'8" still scores with regularity, somewhat inexplicably given that he is 35 years old, going on 78. Ignore his 54 international goals at your own peril. I like Tomas Sivok. He always was a standout performer on my Football Manager teams. Whether or not he makes an impact remains to be seen but my beer-filled gut is telling me that he will turn a head or two.
Player to Watch - Petr Cech. One of the best goalies in the world and probably capable of single-handedly carrying this team to the knockout stages.
Hot Chick - Meet Radka Kocurova. Tomas Rosicky's WAG. Apparently, she likes lettuce.
Luckily for Portugal, it's a team game, and even if C-Ron is off pouting somewhere there is more than enough talent here to make a deep run in the competition. Beaten finalists in the last Euro, the Portuguese have to be considered favorites to take this group, even without former stalwart Figo on the squad. Standouts (outside of C-Ron) include: Ricardo Carvalho, Miguel, Deco, Nani, Simao and hopefully Liverpool bound Quaresma. They also have a goalie named Quim, which according to Dictionary.com means: a vagina or vulva. Leave it to the Portuguese to pick a name synonymous with pussy.
The one thing that worries me about the squad is their lack of a great striker. Nuno Gomes is a poor man's Pauleta and that in itself is not a ringing endorsement. It might not matter with the midfield firepower they posses but something to watch during the group stages.
Player to Watch - Fuck you for thinking I was going to put Ronaldo here. I wish a terrible knee injury upon him. Instead, please familiarize yourself with Ricardo Quaresma, who might be terrorizing Prem defenses and delighting the Anfield faithful next season (please make this happen, God).
Hot Chick - Merche Romero, former WAG of C. Ron, now just a hot little biddy.
Switzerland - Host nation alert! Host nation alert! Can the Swiss bottle the patriotic support of the homeland and make an improbable run to the later stages of the tournament? In a word: F'no. That's a combination of "Fuck" and "No," done out of necessity because of my self-imposed one word limit. Sorry Swiss. Time to get your mind off of soccer and focus on what is important: laying off thousands upon thousands of UBS employees.
The Swiss carry a roster of very few standouts. There are no superstars here and only a couple of household names. Philippe Senderos is perhaps the most notable player and he is only well known because he is a mediocre player at one of the world's most popular clubs, Arsenal. For the die-hards out there, names like Hakan Yakin and Alexander Frei mean something, but not much. This squad is devoid of any interesting characteristics. Switzerland made it out of the group stages at the 2006 World Cup, but I can't see that happening this time around. It's three and out for 1/2 of the hosts.
Player to Watch - Alexander Frei. YouTube is not chock full of Swiss highlight reels, so this is the best that I could find. If the team hopes to progress, Cpt. Frei is going to have to have the tourney of his life.
Hot Chick - The Miss Swiss herself Christa Rigozzi.
Turkey - The Turks are an intriguing team. On paper, they don't look that impressive. But underestimate these Ottoman descendants and you're likely to get a kilij to the face. While it will be a struggle for Turkey to make it out of the group stages, don't be surprised if they sneak up on teams in this group. I'm putting the Czech Republic on upset alert against Turkey. And I'm also stamping my "Dark Horse" seal on this squad. What does that actually mean? I'm not telling until I see how far Turkey goes.
Fans of the beautiful game will recognize some big names on Turkey: B. Emre, H. Altintop, Tuncay and Nihat are all fairly well known around the continent. The success of this team depends on the players who are still playing in their homeland with very little outside exposure. They might be huge in the Istanbul tabloids but I couldn't tell you the difference between Ugur Boral and Gokhan Zan if one of them jumped up and offered me the sweetest Turkish hashish known to man. If the unknown players step up and make a name for themselves, look out...this team will be dangerous.
Player to Watch - Belozoglu Emre. Shaftedat Newcastle, this diminutive playmaker will be the straw that stirs the Turks drink of choice: chilled goat's blood.
Hot Chick - This one is a bit of a stretch, but since it's hard to find really attractive chicks from Turkey on the Internet without sifting through page upon page of porn, we are going with Sebnem Schaefer, a half-Turkish/half-German, revolver toting TLP.
Part 2 tomorrow...or whenever I get around to it.
1 comment:
Dude, your blog is amazing. Thankyou.
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